The present invention relates to a data imaging method and an image forming device.
Conventional printers including ink jet and laser printers are typically coupled with a host computer system which is configured to interface with the appropriate printer. The host system usually downloads a print job to the printer via an input/output interface. Typical printers include firmware containing a set of instructions configured to parse the incoming data, rasterize the data and print an image.
Some conventional arrangements provide a page description language (PDL) driver within the host computer system. Exemplary page description languages include PCL and PostScript. The associated printer includes one or more parsers which are configured to operate in conjunction with the appropriate page description language drivers of the host computer system. The attached printer usually has plural page description language parsers for use with multiple drivers. Following processing within the appropriate page description language parser, the received data is rasterized and applied to the print engine of the printer.
Referring to FIG. 1, a functional illustration of firmware of a conventional printer 1 is depicted. The depicted firmware includes an I/O subsystem 4, imaging subsystem 5 and engine subsystem 6. I/O subsystem 4 is coupled with a host 2. Host 2 is configured to output a print job data stream to printer 1. Exemplary print job data streams comprise page description language (PDL) data.
I/O subsystem 4 accepts the print job data stream from host 2 and removes any I/O specific data from the data stream. I/O subsystem 4 thereafter presents the data stream to imaging subsystem 5. Imaging subsystem 5 is operable to convert the data, which is typically in the form of a sequence of instructions describing how marks should be made on a page, into a rasterized representation of the page to be printed. Imaging subsystem 5 typically comprises a parser and rasterizer to provide such conversion operations of the data stream. The rasterized data is outputted from imaging subsystem 5 and presented to engine subsystem 6.
Engine subsystem 6 receives the rasterized data from imaging subsystem 5 and interfaces with print engine 8. Engine subsystem 6 communicates with the laser or other printing device hardware of print engine 8. Print engine 8 is configured to place marks on the media during printing.
The previously described subsystem printer operations are typically implemented within firmware of the printer. The firmware is provided within various read only memory (ROM) storage devices in many conventional devices. Accordingly, some conventional printer arrangements are relatively inflexible and do not easily accommodate changes within imaging technology or additional applications.
Therefore, a need exists to provide improved image forming devices and methodologies which overcome these shortcomings of the prior devices.
The present invention provides data imaging methods and image forming devices. One aspect of the present invention provides a data imaging method including the steps of providing an image forming device including a filter interface; communicating at least one data stream within the image forming device; adaptively interfacing a filter with the filter interface of the image forming device; accessing at least one data stream using the filter following the interfacing; and forming an image following the accessing.
A second aspect of the present invention provides an image forming device comprising: an interface device adapted to communicate a data stream; a filter interface coupled with the interface device and configured to communicate the data stream with the interface device, the filter interface being further configured to adaptively interface with at least one filter received within the image forming device, at least one filter being configured to access the data stream from the filter interface and output the data stream to the filter interface; and at least one storage device configured to receive and store the data stream.
Another aspect of the present invention provides an image forming device comprising: an interface device adapted to couple with a host and communicate at least one data stream with the host; a filter interface coupled with the interface device and configured to communicate the data stream with the interface device, the filter interface being further configured to adaptively interface with at least one filter received within the image forming device, at least one filter being configured to access the data stream from the filter interface and output the data stream to the filter interface, the filter interface and firmware individually being implemented in one of firmware and software; at least one storage device configured to receive and store the data stream and the filter; a processor configured to execute at least one of firmware instructions and software instructions and rasterize the data stream within at least one storage device; and a print engine configured to generate an image upon media according to the rasterized data stream.